Topic: Justice

The HHC’s shadow reports and its suggestions for questions to be included in the List of Issues for the UN Human Rights Committee

The transnational project coordinated by the Vienna based Ludwig Boltzmann Institute aimed to facilitate experience exchange among the National Human Rights Institutions (which is the ombudsman in Hungary) operating in the European Union. In the … Read more

Ahead of the hearing before the ECtHR on 20 December in the Beuze v. Belgium case, NGO coalition expresses its hope that the European Court of Human Rights will rule in a way which guarantees that individuals cannot be convicted if were unlawfully denied early access to a lawyer in criminal proceedings.

Authorities terminated cooperation agreements with the Hungarian Helsinki Committee and denied access to police detention, prisons and immigration detention after two decades of cooperation and 2000+ visits. The HHC can no longer monitor human rights … Read more

Within the framework of our EU project called “Suspects in restrains – the importance of appearance: how suspects and accused persons are presented in the courtroom, in public and in the media (SIR)”, we carried … Read more

The ProCam project funded by the European Commission’s Justice Programme is an international project on audiovisual recording of police interrogations of suspects, including minors and vulnerable persons. The overall objective of this multi-jurisdictional research is … Read more

Promoting access to case materials of defendants and their defense counsels in criminal proceedings has been a long-standing priority of the HHC, and is related to activities involving a series of successful applications submitted to … Read more

In its March 2015 pilot judgment issued in the Varga and Others v. Hungary case (in which three of the applicants were represented by the HHC), the European Court of Human Rights concluded that the overcrowding of penitentiaries in Hungary constitutes a structural problem, and Hungary should produce a plan to reduce overcrowding.

Know Your Rights!    Short movie on the rights of suspects in Hungary   What happens to me if I am suspected with committing a criminal offence in Hungary? May I ask the police officer … Read more

Currently, it is difficult for the perpetrator and the victim in petty offence procedures to conclude a settlement, even though settling would often be better for both of them. The HHC turned to the Ombudsperson regarding the issue, who agreed with the HHC and asked the Ministry of Interior to amend the rules.

Ill-treatment has been prohibited by international and regional instruments and conventions for many decades. Yet torture and other forms of inhuman or degrading treatment at the hands of state officials, and particularly those engaged in … Read more

The Hungarian authorities’ refusal to provide the HHC with information relating to ex officio defence counsels was in breach of the right of access to information.

The Hungarian authorities’ refusal to provide the HHC with information relating to ex officio defence counsels was in breach of the right of access to information

Do defendants with no legal background understand their rights in criminal procedure? Do they know that they have the right to remain silent? Are they aware of what remaining in silence means in practice? In … Read more

The primary objective of the project, carried out in nine countries of the European Union was to measure the practical operation of suspects’ rights at the investigative stage – the right to interpretation and translation, … Read more

In its March 2015 judgment issued in the Varga and Others v. Hungary case, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) concluded that the overcrowding of penitentiaries in Hungary constitutes a structural problem, and Hungary … Read more

In its judgment of 5 July 2016, the European Court of Human Rights established that the pre-trial detention of the HHC’s client, Mr. Bandur,  violated the European Convention on Human Rights. In 2012 the HHC … Read more

The Hungarian Helsinki Committee was a partner in the international project “Strengthening procedural rights in criminal proceedings: effective implementation of the right to a lawyer/legal aid under the Stockholm Programme”, coordinated by the Bulgarian Helsinki … Read more

During the past few years, pre-trial detainees have made up almost one-third of the prison population in Hungary, contributing to the overcrowding of the penitentiary system, which, according to a 2015 judgment of the European … Read more

In 2011, a police officer halted the car of a man in the outskirts of the city of Tatabánya. After getting into an oral dispute (the HHC’s future client refused to hand over his ID … Read more